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JENNY 

By DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 



'Vengeance of Jenny's case t Fie on ber I Nevet name htt, child I " 

• Mrs. Quickly. 



HE PHILOSOPHER PRESS 
AUSAU WISCONSIN 



Vi 



Of this edition of JENNY, written by Dante 
Gabriel Rossetti, sii hundred copies were made on 
handmade paper, and of them this is number ^,2 4 




AZY laughing languid Jenny, 
Fond of a kiss and fbnd of a 

guinea. 
Whose head upon my knee 
to-night 
Rests for a while, as if grown light 
With all our dances and the sound 
To which the wild tunes spun you round: 
Fair Jenny mine, the thoughtless queen 
Of kisses which the blush between 
Could hardly make much daintier; 
Whose eyes are as blue skies, whose hair 
Is countless gold incomparable : 
Fresh flower, scarce touched with signs that tell 
Of Love's exuberant hotbed : — Nay, 
Poor flower left torn since yesterday 



Until to-morrow leave you bare- 
Poor handful of bright spring-water 
Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face; 
Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace 
Thus with your head upon my knee ; — 
Whose person or whose purse may be 
The lodestar of your reverie ? 

^p;^HIS room of yours, my Jenny, looks 
SSbb^i a change from mine so full of books. 
Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth. 
So many captive hours of youth, — 
The hours they thieve from day and night 
To make one's cherished work come right. 
And leave it wrong for all their theft. 
Even as to-night my work was left : 



Until I vowed that since my brain 
And eyes of dancing seemed so fain. 
My feet should have some dancing too: — 
And thus it was I met with you. 
Well, I suppose 'twas hard to part. 
For here I am. And now, sweetheart. 
You seem too tired to get to bed. 

H^T was a careless life I led 

f^^} When rooms like this were scarce so 

strange ^ 

Not long ago. What breeds the change, — 
The many aims or the few years? 
Because to-night it all appears 
Something I do not know again. 




HE cloud's not danced out of my brain. — 
The cloud that made it turn and swim 
While hour by hour the books grew dim. 
Why, Jenny, as I watch you there, — 
For all your wealth of loosened hair. 
Your silk ungirdled and unlac*d 
And warm sweets open to the waist. 
All golden in the lamplight's gleam, — 
You know not what a book you seem. 
Half-read by lightning in a dream ! 
How should you know, my Jenny? Nay, 
And I should be ashamed to say : — 
Poor beauty, so well worth a kiss ! 
But while my thought runs on like this 
With wasteful whims more than enough, 
I wonder what you're thinking of. 



MF of myself you think at all. 
What is the thought? — conjedural 
On sorry matters best unsolved? — 
Or inly is each grace revolved 
To fit me with a lure? — or. sad 
To think I perhaps you're merely glad 
That Tm not drunk or ruffianly 
And let you rest upon my knee. 

|OR sometimes, were the truth 
S confessed. 
You're thankful for a little rest, — 
Glad from the crush to rest within. 
From the heart-sickness and the din 
Where envy's voice at virtue's pitch 
Mocks you because your gown is rich; 




And from the pale girl's dumb rebuke. 
Whose ill-clad grace and toil-worn look 
Proclaim the strength that keeps her weak 
And other nights than yours bespeak; 
And from the wise unchildish elf. 
To schoolmate lesser than himself. 
Pointing you out, what thing you are : — 
Yes, from the daily jeer and jar. 
From shame and shame's outbraving too. 
Is rest not sometimes sweet to you ? — 
But most from the hatefulness of man 
Who spares not to end what he began. 
Whose ads are ill and his speech ill. 
Who, having used you at his will. 
Thrusts you aside, as when I dine 
I serve the dishes and the wine. 




iELL, handsome Jenny mine, sit up, 
Tve filled our glasses, let us sup. 
And do not let me think of you. 
Lest shame of yours suffice for two. 
What, still so tired? Well, well then, keep 
Your head there, so you do not sleep; 
But that the weariness may pass 
And leave you merry, take this glass. 
Ahl lazy lily hand, more bless'd 
If ne*er in rings it had been dressed 
Nor ever by a glove conceard. 



I^^EHOLD the lilies of the field, 
^^Sl They toil not, neither do they spin; 
So doth the ancient text begin, — 
Not of such rest as one of these 



Can share. Another rest and ease 
Along each summer-sated path 
From its new lord the garden hath, 
Than that whose spring in blessings ran 
Which praised the bounteous husbandman. 
Ere yet, in days of hankering breath. 
The lilies sickened unto death. 

(HAT, Jenny, are your lilies dead? 
Aye, and the snow-white leaves are 
spread 
Like winter on the garden-bed. 
But you had roses left in May, — 
They were not gone too. Jenny, nay. 
But must your roses die, and those 
Their purfled buds that should unclose ? 




Even so; the leaves are curled apart. 
Still red as from the broken heart. 
And here's the naked stem of thorns. 



K^WAY, nay, mere words. Here nothing 

lISiSiM warns 

As yet of winter. Sickness here 

Or want alone could waken fear, — 

Nothing but passion wrings a tear. 

Except when there may rise unsought 

Haply at times, a passing thought 

Of the old days, which seem to be 

Much older than any history 

That is written in any book; 

When she would lie in fields and look 

Along the ground through the blown grass. 



And wonder where the city was. 

Far out of sight, whose broil and bale 

They told her then for a child's tale. 



^^i^yENNY, you know the city now. 
^^Ji^ A child can tell the tale there, how 
Some things which are not yet enroll'd 
In market-lists are bought and sold 
Even till the early Sunday light. 
When Saturday night is market-night 
Everywhere, be it dry or wet. 
And market-night in the Haymarket. 
Our learned London children know. 
Poor Jenny, all your pride and woe; 
Have seen your lifted silken skirt 
Advertise dainties through the dirt; 



Have seen your coach-wheels splash rebuke 
On virtue ; and have learned your look 
When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare 
Along the streets alone, and there. 
Round the long park, across the bridge. 
The cold lamps at the pavement's edge 
Wind on together and apart, 
A fiery serpent for your heart- 



ril^^ET the thoughts pass, an empty cloud ! 

kLjJ Suppose I were to think aloud, — 

What if to her all this were said ? 

Why, as a volume seldom read 

Being opened halfway shuts again. 

So might the pages of her brain 

Be parted at such words, and thence 



Close back upon the dusty sense. 
For is there hue or shape defin'd 
In Jenny's desecrated mind. 
Where all contagious currents meet, 
A Lethe of the middle street? 
Nay, it refleds not any face. 
Nor sound is in its sluggish pace. 
But as they coil those eddies clot. 
And night and day remember not. 

iHY, Jenny, you're asleep at last! — 
Asleep, poor Jenny, hard and fast,— 
So young and soft and tired; so fair. 
With chin thus nestled in your hair. 
Mouth quiet, eyelids almost blue 
As if some sky of dreams shone through ! 





UST as another woman sleeps I 
Enough to throw one's thoughts in 
heaps 
Of doubt and horror, — what to say 
Or think, — this awful secret sway. 
The potter's power over the clay! 
Of the same lump, it has been said. 
For honor and dishonor made. 
Two sister vessels. Here is one. 



qj Y cousin Nell is fond of fun, 
^ And fond of dress, and change, and 
praise. 
So mere a woman in her ways: 
And if her sweet eyes rich in youth 
Are like her lips that tell the truth. 



My cousin Nell is fond of love. 

And she's the girl Vm proudest of. 

Who does not prize her, guard her well? 

The love of change, in cousin Nell. 

Shall find the best and hold it dear : 

The unconquered mirth turn quieter 

Not through her own, through others' woe : 

The conscious pride of beauty glow 

Beside another's pride in her. 

One little part of all they share. 

For Love himself shall ripen these 

In a kind soil to just increase 

Through years of fertilizing peace. 




|F the same lump, as it is said. 
For honor and dishonor made, 
Two sister vessels. Here is one. 




T makes a goblin of the sun. 



jO pure, — so fairn! How dare to 
think 

Of the first common kindred link? 
Yet, Jenny, till the world shall burn 
It seems that all things take their turn 
And who shall say but this fair tree 
May need, in changes that may be. 
Your children's children's charity? 
Scorned then, no doubt, as you are scorn'dl 




Shall no man hold his pride forewarned 
Till in the end, the Day of Days, 
At Judgment, one of his own race. 
As frail and lost as you, shall rise, — 
His daughter, with his mother's eyes? 

OW Jenny's clock ticks on the shelf! 
a Might not the dial scorn itself 
That has such hours to register? 
Yet as to me, even so to her 
Are golden sun and silver moon. 
In daily largesse of earth's boon. 
Counted for life-coins to one tune. 
And if, as blindfold fates are toss'd. 
Through some one man this life be lost. 
Shall soul not somehow pay for soul? 




jjAIR shines the gilded aureole 
21 In which our highest painters place 
Some living woman's simple face. 
And the stilled features thus descried 
As Jenny's long throat droops aside. — 
The shadows where the cheeks are thin. 
And pure wide curve from ear to chin, — 
With Raffael's, Leonardo's hand 
To show them to men's souls, might stand 
Whole ages long, the whole world through. 
For preachings of what God can do. 
What has man done here? How atone. 
Great God, for this which man has done? 
And for the body and soul which by 
Man's pitiless doom must now comply 
With lifelong hell, what lullaby 



Of sweet forgetful second birth 
Remains? All dark. No sign on earth 
What measure of God's rest endows 
The many mansions of His house. 



V^j^F but a woman's heart might see 
^^J Such erring heart unerringly 
For oncel But that can never be. 



PSf^^IKE a rose shut in a book 

CJi^Sl In which pure women may not look. 

For its base pages claim control 

To crush the flower within the soul; 

Where through each dead rose-leaf that clings. 

Pale as transparent Psyche-wings. 

To the vile text, are traced such things 



As might make lady*s cheek indeed 
More than a living rose to read; 
So nought save foolish foulness may 
Watch with hard eyes the sure decay; 
And so the life-blood of this rose. 
Puddled with shameful knowledge, flows 
Through leaves no chaste hand may unclose; 
Yet still it keeps such faded show 
Of when 'twas gathered long ago. 
That the crushed petals* lovely grain. 
The sweetness of the sanguine stain. 
Seen of a woman's eyes, must make 
Her pitiful heart, so prone to ache. 
Love roses better for its sake : — 
Only that this can never be : — 
Even so unto her sex is she. 



m 



ET, Jenny, looking long at you. 
The woman almost fades from view. 



A cipher of man's changeless sum 
Of lust, past, present, and to come. 
Is left. A riddle that one shrinks 
To challenge from the scornful sphinx. 

g^^^IKE a toad within a stone 
fe^l^^l Seated while Time crumbles on; 
Which sits there since the earth was curs'd 
For Man's transgression at the first; 
Which, living through all centuries. 
Not once has seen the sun arise ; 
Whose life, to its cold circle charmed. 
The earth's whole summers have not warmed: 
Which always — whitherso the stone 



Be flung — sits there, deaf, blind, alone; — 
Aye, and shall not be driven out 
Till that which shuts him round about 
Break at the very Master's stroke. 
And the dust thereof vanish as smoke. 
And the seed of Man vanish as dust : — 
Even so within this world is Lust. 

OME, come, what use in thoughts 
like this? 
Poor little fenny, good to kiss, — 
You*d not believe by what strange roads 
Thought travels, when your beauty goads 
A man to-night to think of toads ! 
Jenny, wake up. . . . Why, there's the dawn! 




m 



ND there's an early wagon drawn 
To market, and some sheep that jog 
Bleating before a barking dog; 
And the old streets come peering through 
Another night that London knew : 
And all as ghostlike as the lamps. 

jo on the wings of day decamps 
My last night's frolic . Glooms begin 
To shiver off as lights creep in 
Past the gauze curtains half drawn-to. 
And the lamp's doubled shade grows blue, — 
Your lamp, my Jenny, kept alight. 
Like a wise virgin's, all one night! 
And in the alcove cooly spread 
Glimmers with dawn your empty bed; 




And yonder your fair face I see 

Reflected lying on my knee. 

Where teems with first foreshadowings 

Your pier-glass scrawled with diamond rings: 

And on your bosom all night worn 

Yesterday's rose now droops forlorn 

But dies not yet this summer morn. 



^M 



ND now without, as if some word 
Had called upon them that they heard, 
The London sparrows far and nigh 
Clamor together suddenly; 
And Jenny's cage-bird grown awake 
Here in their song his part must take. 
Because here too the day doth break. 



ND somehow in myself the dawn 
ylB^i^ Among stirred clouds and veils 

withdrawn 
Strikes grayly on her. Let her sleep. 
But will it wake her if I heap 
These cushions thus beneath her head 
Where my knee was ? No, — there's your bed. 
My Jenny, while you dream. And there 
I lay among your golden hair 
Perhaps the subject of your dreams. 
These golden coins. 

For still one deems 
That Jenny's flattering sleep confers 
New magic on the magic purse, — 
Grim web, how clogged with shrivelled flies! 
Between the threads fine fumes arise 
And shape the pictures in the brain. 



There roll no streets in glare and rain. 

Nor flagrant man-swine whets his tusk; 

But delicately sighs in musk 

The homage of the dim boudoir ; 

Or like a palpitating star 

Thrilled into song, the opera-night 

Breathes faint in the quick pulse of light; 

Or at the carriage-window shine 

Rich wares for choice; or, free to dine. 

Whirls through its hour of health, divine 

For her, the concourse of the Park. 

And though in the discounted dark 

Her fundions there and here are one. 

Beneath the lamps and in the sun 

There reigns at least the acknowledged belle 

Apparelled beyond parallel. 

Ah, Jenny, yes, we know your dreams. 




OR even the Paphian Venus seems 
3 A goddess o*er the realms of love. 
When silver-shrined in shadowy grove : 
Aye, or let offerings nicely placed 
But hide Priapus to the waist. 
And whoso looks on him shall see 
An eligible deity. 

JHY, Jenny, waking here alone 
May help you to remember one. 
Through all the memory's long outworn 
Of may a double-pillowed morn. 
I think I see you when you wake. 
And rub your eyes for me, and shake 
My gold, in rising, from your hair, 
A Danac for a moment there. 




^^StJENNY, my love rang true ! for still 
WSJ^i Love at first sight is vague, until 
That tinkling makes him audible. 



m 



ND must I mock you to the last. 
Ashamed of my own shame, — aghast 

Because some thoughts not born amiss 

Rose at a poor fair face like this? 

Well, of such thoughts so much I know : 

In my life, as in hers, they show. 

By a far gleam which I may near. 

A dark path I can strive to clear. 



NLY one kiss. Good-bye. my dear. 




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